A DOG grooming and kennels business has been forced out of its base after a neighbouring farmer said it was operating in breach of a decades-old covenant.

Maria and Byron Parnell say they have had to refund thousands of pounds to customers who had booked the pets into their kennels near Llantrisant. Last night Mrs Parnell said she had been “devastated” when farmer David Roberts used the covenant to shut down the business nearly five years after she and her husband set it up.

“This has caused us enormous upheaval just before Christmas,” she said. “We have been operating here without any problem for nearly five years, and this is threatening to destroy our livelihood.

“You need to have a presence 24-hours-a-day in a kennels, so it is out of the question for us to operate it from a commercial premises elsewhere. For the moment I am carrying on with the grooming side of the business from a portable building on a friend’s land nearby.”

The Parnells bought their home 23 years ago, but say they were not advised by their solicitor at the time that Mr Roberts had placed a covenant on the land when he sold it to a previous owner. The covenant stipulates that no business of any kind should be carried out from the home.

Mrs Parnell said: “Unfortunately it is too late for us to make a complaint of negligence against our solicitor. We really don’t think our business was interfering with Mr Roberts in any way. He has been fully aware that we have been running it for years, but hasn’t invoked the covenant until now.